St. Jude CEO to step down, but remain with Memphis children's research hospital

Dr. William E. Evans announced Monday that after 10 years, he'll be stepping down next summer as the director and chief executive officer of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Evans, 63, said he'll leave the top job in July 2014 and return full time to research, which he has continued part time even while serving as St. Jude's director and CEO since 2004.

Founded by entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962, the research hospital located near Downtown Memphis has had five chief executives in 51 years.

Evans, introduced to St. Jude in 1972 as a University of Tennessee Health Science Center graduate student in Memphis earning his doctor of pharmacy degree, said he thinks that clearing the way for new leadership every 10 years or so is a good idea to spur innovation.

"What I learned in ‘72 as a student was that this place had an incredible mission and it had an unusual culture of collaboration, innovation, quality in the way it did things and compassion for patients," Evans said. "So as I became the CEO many years later, I wanted to maintain that culture, where people work together, that's the norm."

St. Jude's board of governors will oversee an international search for his successor, both within and outside of the organization.

Terry Burman, chairman of the board of governors, pointed to major advances in treatment of childhood leukemia and brain tumors, an $85 million ground-breaking gene research project funded by St. Jude, and hospital expansion as legacies of Evans' leadership.

"His significant contributions have made an indelible mark on our history, resulting not only in improved survival for children with cancer, but in better long-term quality of life," Burman said in a statement.

World renowned for its research and treatment of children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases at no cost to their families, St. Jude treats nearly 8,000 patients a year, about 4,000 employees and some 220 faculty members and post-doctoral scientists-in-training from all over the world.

Salaries and benefits totaled nearly $340 million in 2012, according to an IRS document the nonprofit hospital filed. Evans, according to the documents, received a salary of about $782,000 and other benefits that made his total compensation about $940,000.

Evans' research specialty is pharmacogenetics, a fast-growing area of cancer research that determines which drugs may work best based on a person's genetic makeup.

St. Jude research breakthroughs have included a 2009 announcement of a 90-percent cure rate for childhood leukemia without use of radiation. To better target brain tumors, the hospital is building a proton radiation therapy center in a $198 million tower. A genomics sequence project, costing $55 million in its first phase and another $30 million in its second, is exceeding all expectations, Evans said.

His wife, Dr. Mary Relling, is also a member of St. Jude's pharmaceutical sciences faculty.

Retiring from the chief executive's office to return to the laboratory is not a new step. Evans succeeded Dr. Arthur W. Nienhuis, who remains a member of the St. Jude faculty.